Twins 5, Angels 0: It's So Not Joever

24 minutes ago, Hans Birkeland said:

Bailey Ober (2-1, 5.04 ERA) goes against Gavin Williams (2-1, 4.15 ERA) as the Twins return to the Major League portion of their schedule against the devil-magic-wielding Cleveland Guardians.

Don’t the Angels have a .500 record when not playing the Twins? It was a nice sweep of a major league team that was 12-12 when they came to town.

I tuned in late to see the seventh inning stretch  , so I looked at the boss score and Ryan went seven and twins were up 4-0 , yippee skippee  ...

Nice to see Ryan go 7 with 11 strikeouts , and topa contributed with 2 innings of no hit ball ...

Good pitching shuts out angels , nice ...

Correa was 3 for 3 but then structvout  , nice to see some contributions from Correa  , we won without buxton  ...

Nice homestand against mediocre teams , 5-1 homestand  ...

Hopefully  this will help motivate the team into winning , next test is Cleveland and Boston on the road and Baltimore and San Francisco at home , of the above mentioned , Baltimore is the only team below 500 and that could change by the time we play them ...

Nice sweep , let play strong baseball tomorrow and the next day and the next , just pound your opponent into oblivion  ...

Go Twins  , on paper your suppose to win the division  ...

The season starts in Cleveland  ...

Kind of an old school game with the starters pitching deeper into the game.  Really is an easy game to manage when your starter gives you 7 quality innings. 

This may not be a mirage. But the streakiness is vexing.

47 minutes ago, LastOnePicked said:

"perhaps those who called for Rocco Baldelli's job can touch some grass"

Oof. Steady on there, champ. They just went 5-1 against the lowly White Sox and Angels at home. Let's revisit this after they play some better teams and maybe, maybe play .500 baseball for a few weeks.

They almost had to do that against the White Sox & Angels.  They were the teams on the schedule, thus rendering doing so against any other team(s) highly unlikely.

As the resident poster giving the most crap to Correa..... let me just also say that if he and Buck ever get back to consistent ALL-Star level play at the same time.... this team could compete.

I don't know if the is the beginning of a Correa breakout but I sure hope so.

Is it possible that he is just a terrible hitter in cold weather?  

Excellent pitching, some clutch swings and a highlight reel catch.. Solid win and sweep. Yes it's the Angels but a sweep beats the alternative. Perhaps it's been noted but Correa's rocket in the 6th was changed from an error to a hit so 3-4. His lumber is starting to heat up.

Go Twins! Turn the page on the gut punches.

It sure would have been nice if Emmanuel Rodriguez was healthy and lighting it up at Triple-A.

So, an argument could be made that while it is disappointing to have Keirsey unable to hit his weight, he is doing what is asked of him defensively and as a pinch runner.  Rodriguez would not be a good candidate for Keirsey's role.  He needs to keep developing to play a much more vital role for this team when it is ready for him to show his potential.

McCusker IS healthy and lighting it up at Triple-A.  However, he has yet to get the attention of the right people to even place him on the 40 man roster........

4 hours ago, LastOnePicked said:

Yup, we agree. Those were the teams on the schedule at that time. Glad we got that squared away. Let's see how they do against the next few foes.

Regardless, I'm still calling for Baldelli's job. Let the galled jade wince ... my grass remains untouched.

Hamlet...wow!

Nice sweep. I refuse, however, to hope for too much on this upcoming road trip. I've set 3-4 as the expected outcome against Cleveland and Boston...anything under that is a bad road trip and anything over that is good. Baby steps are fine right now because, well, it's still April!

And, Go Wolves (couldn't help it)!

9 hours ago, jorgenswest said:

Don’t the Angels have a .500 record when not playing the Twins? It was a nice sweep of a major league team that was 12-12 when they came to town.

They've won 3 games in their last 4 series and scored 0 or 1 run in nearly half of those games. 

Good to see the Twins completely dominate a team over a 3 game series. Ryan was outstanding and showed why he was such a big miss down the stretch last season. 

Anyway, huge road trip coming up. I would be happy with a 4-3 record over the next 7 games in Cleveland and Boston. Hugely important that we only used one arm out of the pen yesterday (again, due to Ryan's superb outing). 

Man, watching that video clip of Ryan's sweeper: what a wonderfully nasty pitch! Great outing Joe!

The lineup minus Buxton on a rest day appeared far from formidable yet Correa had his best day at the plate of the season. Agreed - Add Wallner, Castro, Lewis, and Keaschall to the mix....Larnach seem to be figuring it out - And if Jeffers could do the same...Joe's fastball was as strong as it's been since midseason last year and his sweeper was dancing. Topa threw 2 innings and looked like the pitcher we've been seeking since he was acquired. It's not even May yet....Win Twins!!

As Bean mentions the Twins have played much cleaner baseball in the field and running the bases.   Baders catch was exciting but he also does some little things well like getting to potential doubles quickly and cutting them off thereby holding the batter to a single. 

That IS pitching.  That was fun to watch (Ryan)!  I was a pitcher and was real happy the way Ryan pitched.  He used his amazing slider perfectly, and spotted his fastball (at his locations), kept defense in game (low pitch counts), etc.!  Twins offense still struggled, but Ryan's game kept me watching!  His stats this year are All-Star;  he will probably be only Twin making that game.

The healthy hurt chart is color backwards. Green to me means go you are healthy and red is stop your hurt.  Don’t think Vázquez is hurt as he just wasn’t playing enough to be out there every other day. Yes he and Jeffers had banged up hands but Jeffers has earned some more starts as he is playing better both offensively and defensively than Vázquez. 
 

Play the schedule you are given, so beat up the teams you are supposed to and then build momentum. Big stretch of games this week

This is why I love Ryan. He challenges…all the time. When he doesn’t have his top command, good lineups will ding him (or worse) occasionally. But his stuff is good enough that average/weak lineups aren’t going to do TOO much even when he doesn’t have his top command. And he BELIEVES this. It makes him fearless. And it always makes him our best candidate to go deep in any given game to save the bullpen.

On 4/27/2025 at 8:08 PM, LastOnePicked said:

Yup, we agree. Those were the teams on the schedule at that time. Glad we got that squared away. Let's see how they do against the next few foes.

Regardless, I'm still calling for Baldelli's job. Let the galled jade wince ... my grass remains untouched.

turns out nobody really cares what you're calling for

On 4/27/2025 at 6:46 PM, Althebum82 said:

It sure would have been nice if Emmanuel Rodriguez was healthy and lighting it up at Triple-A.

So, an argument could be made that while it is disappointing to have Keirsey unable to hit his weight, he is doing what is asked of him defensively and as a pinch runner.  Rodriguez would not be a good candidate for Keirsey's role.  He needs to keep developing to play a much more vital role for this team when it is ready for him to show his potential.

McCusker IS healthy and lighting it up at Triple-A.  However, he has yet to get the attention of the right people to even place him on the 40 man roster........

 

And he likely won't get that attention until or unless they decide to place him on the 26 man.  I don't claim to know all the ins and outs of the Rule 5 Draft rules but would have to believe he's still a couple of years from HAVING to be on the 40 man to avoid the Rule 5 draft.  France is leading the team in RBI so it would seem he's not going anywhere.  Larnach is one back and on fire of late and would seem likely to be asked to grab a mitt if France were to falter.  Not to mention a potential handful of other guys who might be ahead of McCusker in the pecking order.  (Miranda, Lewis, Lee, Castro, Julien.  McCusker MIGHT be the next BIG thing and he MIGHT be a AAAA dude.